In church last night I was asked by Roj for the words to a song called "Did You Feel the Mountains Tremble" which we'd sung during the service. To be honest I think that he was as puzzled by one of the lines as I was.
To put this in perspective, this particular song as I've found out came off a disc called Cutting Edge by a band called The Cutting Edge Band, aka "delirious?". The question mark is apparently part of their name.
The chorus from "Did You Feel the Mountains Tremble" is well... odd.
Open up the doors and
Let the music play
Let the streets resound with singing
Songs that bring Your hope
Songs that bring Your joy
Dancers who dance upon injustice
The 4th and 5th lines are grammatically correct but syntactically strange (that by itself could warrant its own blog post), the last line in particular caused a wee bit of discussion.
Dancers who dance upon injustice
What does this mean? What is it supposed to mean? Is this supposed to be celebrating triumph over injustice? Is it like dancing on the embers of a funeral pyre? Equally the line could be read that whoever the dancers are, celebrating the injustice itself. Is dancing over injustice going to solve anything anyway?
Do we for instance send paratroop divisions of Morris Dancers into Tehran to solve the lack of democracy? Was that guy in front of the tank and were those hundreds of students in Tienanmen Square in 1989 about to engage in the biggest Ballroom program the world has ever seen? Can we line-dance into Darfur and Chad?
Whilst I fully endorse the need to do things about the injustices that go on in the world, the metaphor being employed here is entirely vague. If a congregation is singing something and they're somewhat confused by it, is that at all useful? Or am I merely dancing upon pedantism, whatever that means.
3 comments:
Hi,
I was also confused by this line of the song! So far, I've been reading Acts 5 (Persecution of Disciples after Jesus rose again)
Acts 5: 41 reads
"The apostles left the Sanhedrin, rejoicing because they had been counted worthy of suffering disgrace for the Name."
Perhaps because when we suffer injustice for God's sake, we can see how He can use miraculous ways to lift us from that place. Hence the dancers rejoice, because they know that God is working.
That's my take on it. What do you think?
Cheers,
Esther
Acts 16:25-26 ESV
25About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them, 26and suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken. And immediately all the doors were opened, and everyone’s bonds were unfastened.
Not! this line reeks of liberation theology. Using the gospel for a failed politcal socialist movement is just not! Youve been outed!
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